在權力集中的社會，政府對媒體的管控和審查讓人很容易理解為媒體受精英主導。但在市場化媒體主導、政府審查隱蔽的國家，人們很難辨別政治宣傳的存在。私有媒體間相互競爭，有時會報道和批評政府的弊端，還總不遺余力把自己塑造成言論自由和民眾利益的代言人，這就讓識別政治宣傳變得難上加難。

——艾弗拉姆·諾姆·喬姆斯基

In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state bureaucracy, the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant elite. It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent. This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest.

—Avram Noam Chomsky

我一直在想，如果我能在“一戰”時做政治宣傳，我完全可以在和平年代時也做。但“政治宣傳”這個詞不好，因為德國納粹也在用它。所以我找了個其他的詞，成立了公共關系委員會。

——(美國宣傳“教父”)愛德華·伯尼斯

I thought if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. Propaganda got be bad word because of the Germans using it. What I did was to find some other words, so we founded Council on Public Relations.

—Edward L.Bernays